Techie revives Santali language with digital innovations

BHUBANESWAR: Language is the identity of the society at large and community in particular, believes Ramjit Tudu. The 28-year-old language activist of Mayurbhanj has been digitising his mother tongue Santali and giving it an online identity since the last one decade.

Ramjit, a techie who is currently working as assistant revenue inspector under Jashipur tehsil of Mayurbhanj district, has also been providing Santali literary voices from across the world a digital platform to express themselves.

It all started in 2014 when he got his first Android phone which opened his access to the internet. “While exploring online, I found abundant information in major languages but very little in my mother tongue, Santali. This lack of resources sparked my curiosity to find ways to type in and promote my language. After some research, I discovered a few tools, but they had not yet reached the community because the Santali script, known as Ol Chiki, was not widely supported on devices at that time,” said Ramjit.

To address the issue, he launched Ol Chiki Tech – a platform on Facebook with two other language activists R Ashwani Banjan Murmu and Bapi Murmu – to promote and share these tools. He also engaged in outreach programmes and writers’ conferences, helping people to install these tools and guiding them on how to type in Santali. “Till date, we continue to update our tools and resources regularly to ensure public access,” said Ramjit.